Tag Archive: SOCIETY

Truth was once a universally-accepted standard which was “out of style”*. Then truth became whatever you wanted it to be. Now political correctness is attempting to muscle out of existence all opposing views of truth, in order to impose its own…

Many people have written and commented on post-modernism, and on the “post-truth” age, as have I in my own small, humble, bumbling way. I asked, rhetorically, if anything is objectively true, or is truth only that which we personally or as a society imagine or decide for ourselves is true? Does the answer matter anyway?

In post-modernism, apart from an Almighty God as our Western world now is, nothing is objectively true. There’s no Truth with a capital “T”. Nothing is incontrovertibly factual, and nothing is set in stone to measure all standards and opinions and decisions by: such truth is out of style. Law, belief, standards and truth itself, are now all, to use a popular euphemism, “fluid”. This is also why the US Constitution is increasingly under attack, or at least being bent out of shape for convenience.

Without that ultimate measuring stick of the Word of God-the removal of which was and is one of the aims of the anti-Church, anti-Christ movement, you’ve got your truth and I’ve got mine, and even if both views are in total opposition it doesn’t really matter, because we can still both be “right” and happy.

I here repeat an assertion of a colleague of mine who calls himself an atheist and a “rationalist”. To demonstrate just how rational he is, he told me that given enough time “anything” can happen, and gave an example by saying that in any universe, due to “the laws of probability” a man would somewhere eventually do backward somersaults through a hoop while being both swallowed and spat out by a whale.

Of course, there’s no way of disproving my friend’s theory, but my point is that people-many people now-are prepared to believe patent nonsense, simply because it tickles them, appeals to their view of what truth ought to be like, and might I say, provides a colorful deviation from that measuring stick known as Almighty God.

There are, of course, downsides to this approach to truth. For example, under this kind of logic a politician or celebrity and his compliant media representatives can adjust, hide, twist and manipulate the facts and give a totally different story to the real one, but still be telling the truth- as he sees it. We all know out-workings of that little fallacy.

But it seems to me that those pushing for “fundamental change” in our society have already had some success in taking us all one step further, to a time in which the rest of us are being coerced into accepting one view of things; their rough road to Utopia. What they say is true is to their minds now objective truth-they being the gods of the new age, and any criticism of it is struck down with a hail of insults and accusations. It’s no longer enough for them just to have a wildly differing take on truth: any opposition to their opinion must now be destroyed.

Political correctness, so-called “hate-speech”, and the accompanying self-righteous inquisition work to push the now old multiverse of truths out of existence: there can be only one acceptable view of things. Any dissension will land you, they intend, out of a job, out of business, and in prison.

What the rest of us are convinced is unquestionably true, such as the fact that men are born men and women women (barring physical mutation) they insist is an old lie-an oppressive construct of dark ages past. Old lies must be buried, burned, knocked down, abolished and forgotten. Truth as seen by all of humanity for all of the several thousand years of civilization is under attack. What most of us have known logically, instinctively, physically and empirically are the things which, opponents are determined, must be abolished and forgotten. We are in the age of Anti-truth.

However, here’s some good news: the good news. Jesus Christ said,

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me (John 14:6).

Yes, dear reader, no matter what may or may not be thrust upon our culture and our time by the enemies of Truth, there is an end in sight to all this madness and foolishness, and it begins with our acceptance of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ.

In my higgorance and naivety I’ve fallen for the fancy synonym for “fake” too many times, and in this case, once is too many times…

All kinds of things are advertised as being “faux” these days, the word being paraded as though “faux” were something chic, valuable and amazingly desirable. And of course many things are fake without giving any such warning as the four-letter “f” word in my title.

Like this:

An old song by a British band I once liked was titled “I’m bored”. I’ve identified with the sentiments of the song numerous times in my life, and this little admission forms the basis of a theory of mine which I believe explains many maladies in our world…

I was listening to a discussion about Don Quixote, the fictional, self-styled knight-errant, created four hundred years ago by Cervantes. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it-most particularly the Tobias Smollett translation. Quixote made himself what he could never really be-a brave knight-and went out into the world in search of adventure, causing all kinds of trouble, mostly for himself.

The learned panel discussing Quixote debated whether he was mad or just eccentric. I go with the “eccentric” diagnosis. However, I say that it was an eccentricity born of boredom, as eccentricity probably often is. Quixote had had it with his dead-end, uneventful existence, and having read all those exciting stories of knights traveling the world and fighting dragons and saving beautiful maidens, he could only find a way of avoiding madness by re-making himself as one of the knights he’d read about.

Isn’t that the kind of thing children do? Their little minds (before television, overbearing parents and public education get a hold of them) are vitally, vibrantly, constantly active, and unencumbered by the stiff, monochrome, limiting confines of reality, they create their own worlds to find fun and thrills in.

We humans look for meaning and entertainment in all kinds of ways. In the West large numbers of people are fixated on Television. I’m not saying TV us intrinsically wrong. It isn’t, but for millions who live out drab, uneventful time-lines, or who don’t have the time, energy, money or imagination to do the real thing, it’s a convenient and easy way to experience any number of situations and activities without moving out of the comfort and safely of the e-z chair. The rest of us are virtually (pun intended) addicted to various forms of digital entertainment via the internet and computer-based devices. We’re all trying to brighten our lives somehow.

Conquerors and marauders do their thing partly because it’s so thrilling. It’s much more fun setting fire to things and picking fights with people than spending eight or ten hours of mundane drudgery a day at the office, followed by a few hours of sitting on a log or in an armchair, dreading the thought of doing it all over again for the bazillionth time the next day. People take hallucinogenic drugs not necessarily because they’re evil but because normal life is so stale, empty, gray and uneventful in comparison. I’m not condoning illicit drug use-just stating a fact. Even cats are similarly challenged with boredom, which is why they sleep so much. Some people sleep their lives away because dream worlds are much more interesting than the real one.

I’m not pointing any fingers, because I’m as guilty as anyone. And anyway, I’m convinced that God created us for so much more than what we as a society have made available to ourselves.

Neither am I saying that sin doesn’t play a part in such things as despotism, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity: it does. In fact, it’s the central cause, the root cause. But sin is frequently manifest in the lives of us humans because we’re seeking-consciously or unconsciously-meaning and fulfillment. Just look at Eve, who was persuaded that she would gain some exciting kind of enlightenment by doing what God had told her not to do.

We’re bored. We’re more bored than we realize. We’re seeking vital, real, experiential, fun-filled, scintillating lives. And because we’re so incredibly and intricately designed, so fantastically crafted, yet using only five percent of our brains and sometimes even less of our physical potential, we look for a way-any way-to do something to alleviate the mind-numbing, crushing frustration and boredom which we often don’t recognize or identify. We’re unable to analyze our problem, let alone look for an answer in any constructive way. And having not lived long enough or having been unwilling or unable to find the wisdom or the power to control ourselves, we-that is, some of us-launch out in ways which may be destructive and which are sometimes sinful. Profligacy, hedonism, harmful proclivities, addictions all come from an inability or unwillingness to assess or conjure up a proper response to our pent-up potential.

Modern society is part of the problem. It also seeks to profit from the problem it creates, taking natural freedoms and real paths to fulfillment from us, and then providing endless forms of entertainment at our expense to fill in the gap. However, in many ways it fails to give what we really need to overcome our condition.

So what’s the solution: what do we do? I’m not sure that there is a completely satisfactory fix in this life. I do, however, agree with Augustine, who, having once lived a life of unbridled hedonism, came to the following conclusion:

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.

(From “Confessions”).

Solomon, sometimes seen as the wisest man who ever lived, sought after meaning and fulfillment through entertainment, sex and wealth. Being a king, and a very successful one, he was in a position to fulfill all his sensuous desires in as many ways as he could imagine, including possessing a huge harem. However, having tried it all he eventually came to the same conclusion as Augustine. Deciding that it was all “vanity” or emptiness, he declared:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.(Ecclesiastes 12:13 KJV).

I hear some of you groaning and complaining about “church”, and about how boring and unfriendly it can be. Actually, I didn’t say anything about “church”. And do you know what? I agree with you: “church” is frequently not what it should be, and no amount of what’s called “contemporary worship” is going to cut it for me personally-although I understand that it seems to do the trick for some people. Yes, church can be rather dull and can fail to provide the things in life we crave for, but really, it isn’t intended to, on its own. Church attendance is part of a much bigger picture of living life in step with our Creator.

How do us active-minded, imaginative souls live a life of faith and obedience without screaming inside with frustration? Is the entertainment the world offers off-bounds to believers wanting to live a godly life? The answers to these questions could be the subjects of an entire series of blog posts, and I could probably not do them justice even so. However, in part 2, I’ll attempt to offer a few thoughts…

Like this:

A few years ago , while observing the world of politics and the affairs of men, the word ”lawlessness”, in its Biblical sense, began to pop into my mind…

Recently I’ve noticed several Christians commentators using the same word to help define the spirit of our times. Anyone who’s missed the proliferation of lawlessness either isn’t looking or doesn’t want to call it what it is.

I decided to do a little Biblical word study, and it seems the word “lawlessness”, used in my ESV and NIV versions, and translated “iniquity” in the KJV and some other versions, most often refers to a rejection of God’s moral law. However, it can also refer to legal injustice (NIV “Strongest Concordance”). We’ve seen a considerable fulfillment of both of these interpretations in recent times.

How is it that the former Secretary of State can lie to the Congress of the United States under oath and jeopardize national security with impunity, and still run for the office of President? (1). Why is most of the mainstream media so dismissive of the implications of her actions, as though they say nothing about her character and her fitness for the position of leadership of the free world? What will she get away with if she becomes President? How is it that so many potential voters can freely ignore such questions?

Surely the answer must be that we are now a lawless people: a civilization which sets its wishes and proclivities above truth and consequences. And it’s no surprise really, given the lawlessness of the administration over the last several years: the blatant ignoring of law and constitution, of history, of the will of the people, and of the religion which birthed and guided the nation for over two hundred years.

At the same time people who are elected to be public servants perpetuate a crass determination to deny life to multiplied millions of humans in favor of convenience, and now the promotion of and apologetic for a foreign god (Islam’s god) at the expense of liberty, truth and free speech. The consequences for the future of America are not good. Our leaders-who hardly deserve to be called leaders-are setting the worst possible example, first of all by so arrogantly fulfilling their own will, and secondly by showing no shame or remorse once discovered.

The elites who consider themselves our masters and our betters want to control us all in every way possible, and as Plato wrote, tyranny will be the end product. Millions of people died over the centuries in order to preserve and pass on to future generations the knowledge of the law of God, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. In many ways the entirety of World War II was a battle to preserve free, Christian civilization. Don’t believe me? Refer to this speech by Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on June 4th 1940:

“I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization; upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire” (2).

And just in case someone may think in these times of historical revisionism that Churchill was an anomaly-a rare fundamentalist wacko, consider the opening of a prayer read to the people of the United States by President Franklin D Roosevelt, on the eve of D-Day, 1944:

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity (3).

Notice that Roosevelt called the US a “Republic”. Even the fact that The US was established as a republic is being denied in some circles.

The truth that the knowledge of the law of God shaped western civilization (and much of that to the East also) is now being denied or deleted by presidents, politicians, professors and some church ministers. President Obama, apologizing to the Muslim world in his first days in office, declared that the US is “not a Christian nation”. How things have changed before and since then, with help from others who intend to bring about“fundamental transformation”.

Those who wish to impose their will on us all know very well that:

“Those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future”(4).

The goal of present-day political-correctness is to homogenize the world, to dilute or destroy the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to convince us that all religions and philosophies are equal. This, I believe, can also be termed “lawlessness”, because it rejects the supremacy of the ways of God, and because if everything is true, nothing is true: there is no objective law of God to shape our lives by and to govern our governments by. If everything is true there is no transcendent law of life by which the founders of the United States can make such statements as these:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” (5).

So I considered “lawlessness” and “iniquity” and the rejection of the ways of God, and in the course of my study realized that lawlessness isn’t something new-it’s been going on almost since day one of human existence. First Eve and then Adam were prompted to reject God’s law, which at that point consisted only of a simple command stating, in effect, “You can eat anything you like-just don’t eat from that tree there, or you’ll die”. The serpent convinced Eve that in this simple commandment, intended to give freedom of choice and love, God was intentionally spoiling not only her fun but her “right” to freedom of choice, and she and her mate rejected God’s law.

Later in Scripture we read about the Israelites doing essentially the same thing, also fulfilling the other definition of lawlessness involving legal injustice, to the extent that:

“In those days there was no king in Israel, butevery man didthat which wasright in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).

Perhaps the most well-known use of the word “lawlessness”, the one my mind has been returning to, and the one frequently being referenced by others, is in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians (2:3). It speaks of a “secret power” at work in the world, even in Paul’s time: it’s nothing new. However, it is something we can expect to increase as time goes on:

“… because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12 ESV).

That “secret power” of lawlessness will culminate in the appearance of a man (and the Bible does say “man”, not “woman”) who is lawlessness personified, and the spirit of his time a “rebellion”:

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him…that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed…” (2 Thess. 2:1-4).

There’s a resolution to the whole problem of lawlessness, and its ultimate expression, the “man of lawlessness, is already “doomed to destruction” (verse 4).

But it’s not just that one man who will be doomed to destruction. The one who deceived Eve and Adam, and many others since, will be “thrown into the lake of burning sulfur” (Revelation 20:10). Those who have willingly paid attention to him and rejected the ways of God will go the same way:

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened…The dead were judged according to what they had done…” (Revelation 20:11-15).

The only question remaining is, whose side are you on? Are you on the side of lawlessness and rebellion, or are you on God’s side? If you’ve lived a life of rebellion and lawlessness as I once did, there is forgiveness for you if you’re willing to change. Please see my post on the gospel of Jesus Christ:

Like this:

Have you seen one of those charts demonstrating how human knowledge has grown exponentially, how technology has grown exponentially, or how the world’s population has grown exponentially?

It seems a similar graph could now be prepared for social and moral decay, or perhaps we could call it “fundamental transformation…”

The change being pushed upon all of us by the elite few is greased by a news media which still claims to be reporting the news, when in reality it’s giving opinion veiled in news, a narrative designed to shape our own thinking in their direction: a slanted perspective carefully constructed to support, protect and promote an agenda. The agenda is designed to turn us all into truth-haters and haters of all the things that made us great: enterprise, freedom of speech and thought, responsibility, conscience, community, faith, familiarity, family, and the God who told us to “fill the earth” in the first place.
Amazingly, media and education establishments continue to successfully convince many that the people running the show now-those who are seeking to “change the set times and the laws” (Daniel 7:25 NIV) are our saviors, come to rescue us from those terrible bigots who hate everyone, who want to take us back to the dark ages, and who want to start a nuclear war at the earliest opportunity. They’ve become such lovers of fiction that they actually recoil from truth and reason as though reason wants to strangle us.
They’re conspiring to “break their chains and throw off their fetters” (Psalm 2:3). They’ve abandoned truth and instead run headlong into “the lie” (2 Thess. 2:11). They’re calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). They think that lawlessness is going to lead us to Utopia. It seems that it can’t be long before they’ll be thinking that “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3) is the perfect leader.